Jim, Steve, and myself departed Fort Collins at 8am August 16th bound for
Capitol Peak. We arrived at the trailhead at approximately 1pm after having
to back partially down the 4wd road because a gentleman in a Subaru Legacy
was unwilling to navigate a section of the road. This is a good road to have
a high clearance vehicle or to be adept at navigating you medium clearance
vehicle. We did see several Subaru's at the trailhead so it is possible. The
pack in to Capitol Lake is beautiful on highway of a trail. After about 2:30
we arrived to select a suitable campsite slightly below the lake in a wooded
area. The view of Capitol is truly impressive from Capitol Lake and the
Knife Edge can be seen from here. We departed camp at 6am and climbed to the
saddle between Capitol and Mt. Daily. There are some trail markers/trail
construction markers along the way. From the saddle you drop into the valley
on the east side of Capitol. From here it is a long ascending traverse
across an immense talus field with a final climb up the ridge to K2. From K2
we made several 4th class moves to get to the ridge. Maybe a 15' section of
4th class. We then traversed the ridge for several hundred feet to the
"Knife Edge". It truly is a knife edge about a hundred feet. We found a
combination of straddling the ridge and walking along side it worked. The
ridge makes for excellent photo opportunities. After the knife edge the
route follows the ridge a ways further before climbing up an left onto the
face left of the ridge crest. This area contains many short steep steps and
lots of loose rock on down sloping benches. Care must be taken to not
dislodge rocks or yourself. The finish of the climb to the summit emails a
ascending traverse further left of the north ridge. We reached the summit
around 9:30am. The summit is quite small and has an outstanding view down to
Capitol Lake 2,800 ft. below. We encountered approximately 10 persons on the
peak. On the pack out we passed at least 30 persons headed in to climb
Capitol on Saturday. That must have been interesting.

On Friday evening we drove to the trailhead for Castle Peak just past the
town of Ashcroft. The forest service has limited camping to six official
sites. This is different from two years ago when I climbed Castle. We
started at climbing up the road to the Montazuma Mine at approximately
7:30am and reached the summit around 10am. There were many climbers on
Castle including the first climber I have seen smoking a cigar while
climbing. Once again the Elk Range is a beautiful place to climb. Climb safe
and have fun.

Mary Gilbert adds:

Sounds like you had a great trip! One comment: If you traverse to the south
side of K2 and then climb north to it, it's no worse than third class stuff as I
remember. The route kinda zigzags up the rocks.